


this misery will suffice

by soulofme



Category: GOT7
Genre: Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-26
Updated: 2020-01-26
Packaged: 2021-02-27 06:38:39
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,677
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22412584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/soulofme/pseuds/soulofme
Summary: “Live.”“Without you?”“Yeah. Without me.”
Relationships: Im Jaebum | JB/Mark Tuan
Comments: 4
Kudos: 35





	this misery will suffice

“You can leave.”

“What?”

Jaebum stares at him with blank eyes, the wind rustling his hair. Really, it feels more like Jaebum is looking through him, as if Mark is transparent, not even solid enough to be a person.

It’s night. A cold night, with heavy winds and no stars. The kind of night that can’t be anything but ugly, even if someone wants to find the beauty in it.

Jaebum lights up another cigarette. The smoke dances in the space between them, curling into the air, drifting upwards until it disappears altogether. Mark watches it, wishing for it come back.

Wonder if it’ll even come back at all.

Jaebum looks older now. His hair is cropped short, ragged at the ends. He’s cut it himself again. It’s uneven. His skin is pale, but his cheeks are still full. Full enough that Mark wouldn’t think he’s looking at a dying man.

“I said,” Jaebum begins, voice even and low. “You can leave.”

He sounds patronizing, like Mark is child that needs everything diced up and spoon-fed to him. It should make him angry. But it doesn’t.

There’s this overwhelming emptiness inside of him. Something that burns as it picks at his fragile edges. Something that threatens to crush him into dust. Something that aches and throbs, even though Mark can’t find it. Not even when he tries.

Sometimes when Jaebum breathes, it sounds like a gust of wind across a dying land. If Mark closes his eyes, he imagines shriveled branches and dried leaves. Cracked earth. Eternal sunshine, but not the kind people wish for. Unbearable heat.

Mark wonders if that’s what death is like. If it’s like being stuck in the desert, feeling the heat choke you alive. Heat, because Jaebum swears he’s going to hell.

Hell. As if there really is one.

Jaebum’s knuckles are split, an angry red that looks like it hurts. Mark eyes a particularly thick scab on his index finger, wincing unintentionally.

Another stream of smoke escapes Jaebum’s mouth. He looks relaxed tonight, slouched in his chair, facing the city below them. From here, it looks like the world stretches on for miles and miles.

They both know Jaebum’s world ends on this balcony.

“You make it sound like I have a choice.”

“You always have a choice, Mark.” Jaebum’s voice is sharp. It feels like a reprimand somehow.

That something inside of Mark flares up again.

There’s a finality to this night, something that Mark wishes he could shy away from. Jaebum had stopped caring long ago, but back then he’d looked troubled.

Now, there’s nothing. Not even anger, which is somehow worse than everything put together.

“Don’t.”

Mark raises his eyes to meet Jaebum’s. There’s nothing, nothing, nothing.

“Don’t what?”

“Pity me,” Jaebum says, flicking ash off his fingers. He leans forward, smashing his cigarette out against the leg of his chair. A small dark circle is left behind.

Mark wonders if it’ll be hot to the touch. Wonders if he’ll even feel the pain.

“Are you feeling sorry for yourself?”

Jaebum tilts his head to the side, considering.

“Should I?”

“That’s not for me to say.”

“Don’t fuck with me.” Jaebum’s eyes crinkle at the corners, but he’s not smiling. “Be honest.”

“No.”

“No?”

“No, you shouldn’t feel sorry for yourself,” Mark answers softly. Jaebum scoffs.

“Because you have it worse?” he asks condescendingly, raising an eyebrow at Mark’s silence.

“Because it won’t change anything,” Mark corrects mildly. “You won’t get better like that.”

“I’m not going to get better. You know that.”

“Right,” Mark replies, voice cracking on the word.

When he opens his eyes, it’s night again.

He doesn’t remember shutting them, or even going inside. He shifts on the bed, peers over the mound of blankets to the other side. When he pats the space, it’s empty. Jaebum is gone. He fades away into nothing before Mark can get close enough to make him stay.

He doesn’t go far. He never does. Mark always knows where to find him.

But now he’s tired. He closes his eyes. He sleeps.

The next time he awakes, Jaebum is back. When Mark presses against his back, he doesn’t pull away.

Jaebum still writes.

He’s bent over the desk now, scribbling furiously with the nub that’s left of his pencil. Mark watches him from the doorway. The raindrops hit the windowpane, where they linger before sliding down.

The window is open. Not by much. A tiny sliver, enough that whatever ghosts are in the house can escape. Mark’s mother always told him to do that. Otherwise, the ghosts will get stuck inside.

Like Jaebum.

“Stop staring.”

Mark jumps, startled. Jaebum lifts his head slowly.

“Did you eat?” Mark asks, attempting to act like he hasn’t been caught.

“I’m not hungry.”

The emptiness inside of Jaebum leaks out into his words. It’s like he’s lost his soul. Mark walks forward tentatively, approaching the resting beast, hoping he won’t be swiped with its claws.

Jaebum is still when Mark stands next to him.

“You should’ve left.”

“I have nowhere else to go,” Mark lies. He reaches up to rest his hand on Jaebum’s shoulder, but instantly thinks better of it. “Are you kicking me out?”

“Yes.” Another lie.

Jaebum sets his pencil down and rubs at the bridge of his nose. Mark glances down at his notebook. He can’t make out Jaebum’s angry scrawl.

“You don’t talk to me.”

“What should I say, Mark?” Jaebum asks, half-sarcastically, half-frustrated.

“Something. Anything.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

Mark reaches for the notebook. Jaebum had pressed down so hard that the words have left indents on the page.

“It doesn’t?”

There’s a scowl fixed on Jaebum’s face. He used to smile. He’d smile, and laugh, and cry. He’d yell and growl. He’d do _something_.

But he doesn’t do anything now.

Time becomes somewhat of a foreign concept.

It means nothing, suddenly, just something to distinguish one day from another. With Jaebum, every moment seems to bleed into the next, mixing together until the differences are hard to find.

They don’t know how much time he has left. Not long, they’d told Jaebum. However long _not long_ is.

“Get up.”

Jaebum doesn’t look up from his book. Mark feels something crawl up into his throat, threatening to block his airway.

“Get up!”

“Why?” Jaebum drawls.

Mark inhales sharply and grabs his wrist. His body moves as if it isn’t even is own. Jaebum sways before him, eyes narrowed, attempting to jerk away.

“What the fuck?” he snarls, eyes dark.

Mark grabs his shoulder with one shaking hand.

“Dance with me.”

Jaebum’s expression relaxes fractionally. “No.”

“Please?”

“I hate that word,” Jaebum mutters.

“I know. It doesn’t change anything.”

Still, there’s pressure on his waist. Jaebum slumps against him. They move in a small tight circle, fingers squeezing flesh hard enough to hurt, to bruise, to leave behind a reminder for when they forget what it feels like to be this way.

On his good days, Jaebum goes to the beach.

He doesn’t swim anymore. But he watches the waves crash against the shore with a serene look on his face, hidden beneath an umbrella. When the sun hits his skin, he lets it.

It’s the only time he looks alive.

“Why?”

Mark’s hands still where they’re buried in Jaebum’s wet hair. The bath water has turned Jaebum’s fingers into little prunes.

“Why what?”

“Why’d you stay?”

Mark sighs softly, returning to his earlier task of shampooing Jaebum’s hair. Jaebum doesn’t complain when his nails scratch against his scalp.

“Why do you keep asking me that?”

“Because it doesn’t make sense,” Jaebum says honestly, looking truly confused. “You don’t love me.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because I wouldn’t if I were you,” Jaebum says, shrugging. He slides down until the bath water hits his neck, his head the only thing above water.

“But you’re not me,” Mark says before he can stop himself.

Jaebum looks like he wants to say something. In the end, he presses his lips together and doesn’t speak. Not until later, when he’s dry and dressed, when they’re on opposite sides of the same bed, staring at each other, too afraid to sleep.

“Sorry.”

It’s so quiet that Mark almost misses it. He’s overcome by a wave of emotion.

“Don’t,” he whispers, scooting forward to close the space between their bodies.

“You asked me to marry you.”

Jaebum blinks slowly. “I did.”

Mark sucks in a steadying breath.

“So…marry me.”

Jaebum is quiet. Then, he laughs. Laughs so much that his cheeks turn red, that his eyes leak little tears, that his entire body shakes.

In the end, he slides a gold band onto Mark’s finger. When he presses a kiss against it, Mark bites back a sob.

“What’re you gonna do when I die?”

Mark snorts. “Party.”

The ghost of a smile plays on the edges of Jaebum’s lips.

“Good. Do that. What else?”

“I don’t know,” Mark murmurs. Jaebum drums his fingers against his leg.

“Live.”

Mark feels nauseous at the thought. The word hangs threateningly between them. His smile is watery.

“Without you?”

“Yeah,” Jaebum says. “Without me.”

Mark’s memory of Jaebum isn’t complete.

Most of it is broken up into fragments. Some are bigger than others. Like the way Jaebum laid next to him, breaths even and deep as he slept. Or how he and Jaebum drank until the sun rose, until the city woke up beneath them. Or, especially, the way he’d stay so, so strong, just to crumble whenever he saw Mark.

Some memories are smaller. Like the day he got sick. Like the day he gave up.

Like the day he died.

On that day, Mark remembers shutting the window. He remembers cutting off the flow of air from inside to outside. He can hear his mother’s voice in his head, warning him. _Always let them escape, Mark. Don’t trap them here._ But more than anything, he remembers thinking that whatever was with him in the room would be forced to stay now.

Like Jaebum.


End file.
